Corporate interests that spend hundreds of millions a year on state and federal lobbying have grown accustomed to getting what they want at the federal and state levels, but it is much harder to assert corporate control over America's 22,553 municipal and county governments.

The best way to make Earth Hour last beyond Saturday is to apply one simple rule of thumb: Use Less of Everything. Jettison the waste hidden in your daily routine. This is great for you personally and for our planet.

When Rahm Emanuel became mayor, the city of Chicago was making lists of top green cities in America. During the election he pledged support to a community movement aimed at closing the polluting Fisk & Crawford coal plants.

Next-generation water-processing technology coming from within the oil industry promises not only to help solve Texas' drought problem by accessing and desalinating brackish and slightly salty water sources deep under the dry Texan surface but to go one step further by desalinating ocean water and turning dirty water into potable water.

Brown has staked his opposition to a ban or moratorium on fracking by arguing for what he calls "the toughest regulations in the country" aimed at the oozing center of California's oil industry, in Kern County. The effectiveness of those regulations has come under fire from many environmentalists.